The kiwi cuvee certainly had an intersting effect, consumers immediately assumed it was Australian. .smarter consumers assumed it was from NZ, and really brilliant ones looked at the bottle and noticed the “product of france” at the bottom of the label.

In addition to developing the riddling rack necessary for modern champagne, as well as a number of other innovations, she was also a master of commercial tactics, including finding ways to break the British blockade of the continent in order to ship 10,000 bottles of the 1811 cuvee Veuve Cliquot to Konigsburg.

Nicolas Potel, cuvee Gerard Potel, Bourgogne, 2006. (about $19; find this wine) Given that Potel is a leading negociant house in Burgundy and from several tastings of 2006 red Burgundies, I was optimistic that this wine would work out when I added it to my virtual shopping cart.

But for all the merits of Clarendelle, it is Haut-Brion's second wine, Le Clarence de Haut-Brion, (wine made from grapes that just didn't make it into the first cuvee of Haut-Brion) where I believe the real value lays.

Cuvée (or Cuvee on some English language labels) is a French term used on wine labels to denote wine of a specific blend or batch. The word originates from the French word cuve meaning "vat". A cuvée wine may be numbered, indicating that the winemaker assigned a unique number to that blend. The word cuvée may also be used in terms such as "vin de cuvée", "cuvée speciale", or "tête de cuvée" to indicate a first-press wine or a wine that the winemaker believes to be among their finest.